Adobe Dreamweaver is a software program for designing websites, which is more featured as compared to HTML web and programming editor. It was originally developed and published by Macromedia in 1997. Adobe took over Macromedia in 2005 and continued the development in the software and it’s still going on. Dreamweaver is a visual web page editor that allows you to create, edit and manage websites and webpages without having to learn HTML. It uses a WYSIWYG environment that allows you to see what your web pages look like as you create them.
History of Dreamweaver:
The below table list the history of Dreamweaver:
| Developer | Update Versions | Release Date | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Macromedia | 1.0 | December 1998 | Mac OS only |
| 1.2 | March 1998 | First windows version | |
| 2.0-MAX 2004 | December 1998-Sept 2003 | 2.0,3.0 UltraDev1.0, 4.0,UltraDev4.0, MX and MX 2004. | |
| 8.0 | 13 Sept 2005 | Last Macromedia Version | |
| Adobe System | CS3- CS6 | 16 Apr 2007 – 2012 | CS3, CS4, CS5, CS5.5 and CS6 |
| Creative Cloud-CC 2015 | 17 June 2013 -2015 | Full feature support is available through the Creative Cloud subscription service rather than the purchasing of a perpetual license. | |
| CC 2017 | 2 Nov 2016 |
Features of Dreamweaver:
The features of Dreamweaver makes it a versatile web editing tool, Some of the features of Dreamweaver are as follows:
- Dreamweaver supports multiple web and programming languages including HTML, JSP, Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), Active Server Pages (ASP), PHP, Extensible Markup language (XML), and many more.
- Dreamweaver is working on both types of operating systems like MAC OS and Windows.
- In Dreamweaver, you can design both using visually and by using code.
- Dreamweaver allows us to use and test all the popular content management system like Drupal, WordPress, and Joomla. It allows you to see your page in action.
- Dreamweaver provides you with coding assistance.
- It allows you to display the CSS box model without having to know the way to code the stylesheets manually.
- Dreamweaver provides a layer option with the help of which both images and text can be placed at any position on the web page.
- Dreamweaver offers a design palette with a large number of color options. The user can either use the default color available or make its own composition.
- Dreamweaver also provides a publishing tool that helps you to easily manage your files, both locally and on your web server.
- Dreamweaver includes very powerful features to help web developers manage all the related files for a site, post those files to a remote web server, and keep the local files and the files on the remote server synchronized.
- Dreamweaver facilities a rich set of features in a single program capable f handling the most advanced web design and development projects for example: from a simple home page to a large complex project.
Advantages of using Dream Weaver to design web pages:
- It is easy and efficient to use.
- It has the ability to create consistent looking web pages.
- This software comes up with the in-built FTP features, making it easy to upload files directly on the website.
- Customization of the software to match the users requirements.
- It manages and update websites effectively.
Disadvantages:
- It has a confusing interface, which is not easily understandable by the user.
- It only creates dynamic sites only if one have a local server running. The problem that its code creates is that it over complicated.
- The code snippets is not specific.
- Only 10% of the functionality is useful in Dream Weaver.
- It is quite expensive.
Creating a Basic HTML website using Adobe Dreamweaver:
Follow the below steps to build a simple HTML website using Dreamweaver:
Step 1: Click on windows Go: Start > All Programs > Adobe Dreamweaver. The following screen appears:
Step 2: Go to the File menu, and choose New. The New Document window appears.
Step 3: Build the menus using list items.
Step 4: After adding menus, the web page is shown as given below.
Step 5: Build the table with 2 rows and 2 columns.
- The table that appears on the web page is given below.
The above website is a basic web page created using Dreamweaver. There are many options and media available for adding to your website.